Deer Strike

It happened to me August 29, 2006.

I went out for night currency with a short hop to Winchester, VA (KOKV). I
flew there VFR since the only clouds in the forecast would be up in the
Class A realm. Besides, I don't fly VFR in the DC ADIZ very often and I
could use the practice there, too.

The only interesting thing at KOKV were the birds. It's not often I see
birds (not bats) flying around well after dark, but there were a few
sandpipers flitting around Winchester.

The flight home to Leesburg, VA (KJYO) from my night currency landings at
Winchester was uneventful. The landing, on the other hand, had a bit of a
surprise in store.

Rounding out on final, I had the numbers nailed and came in over the
threshold right at 65 MPH indicated (yes, MPH, not knots). Just after the
nose gear touched, I saw a shadow cross the center line from right to left
and into the beam of the landing light: Deer! A split second later came a
thump and a slight pull to the right which was easily corrected.

The engine remained running fine with no unusual vibrations or noises so I
pulled off the runway at the first turn-off, cleaned up the aircraft and
scanned around for damage. As my scan came to the starboard horizontal
stabilizer, I saw in the faint light bent metal and busted fiberglass. It
was painfully obvious the thump I'd felt was not something being run over by
my landing gear as I'd desperately hoped, but rather a second deer.

I parked the plane in its usual spot and assessed the damage. Sure enough,
the starboard stabilizer had its leading corner busted and bent back with
the rear corner twisted back over the trim tab. It was also twisted back
enough that the corner connecting to the empennage was pulled out almost 2
inches. There was wrinkling on the starboard side of the empennage and
vertical stabilizer and the beacon was knocked loose from the fiberglass
cap. Well, "knocked loose" may be a bit of a misnomer as there was a bit of
fiberglass still attached to the beacon which was left hanging by the power
cords. The damage to the port side was worse as the force of the impact
evidently twisted the entire tail section to the port side. Also, the impact
appears to have severed at least one of the control connections as the
control lock was in the yoke, but I was able to move the elevator almost
from stop to stop.

I walked back to the scene of the impact to pull the carcass off the
runway - after all, there's no sense leaving it there for the next poor soul
to land - but there was nothing on the runway. Not even a blood trail. The
only apparent evidence of the culprit was the appearance of two pairs of
green eyes reflecting my flashlight beam at the edge of the woodline west of
the field and they ran off when I approached. After the damage done to the
plane, I was hoping to have something to at least kick.

All things considered, I was lucky. This may end up being minor compared to
the damage that could have been caused had the first deer struck the prop.

Pics and vids posted on my site for interested parties.

--
John T
http://sage1solutions.com/TknoFlyer
Reduce spam. Use Sender Policy Framework: http://spf.pobox.com
____________________